When you hear the words “unloved” and “abandoned” – what feelings hit you? Are your first thoughts of someone else? Or do you feel the impact of those painful words in your heart?
Well, either way I have some great news for you. But first, welcome to “Mornings with Bishop Robert” — thanks for joining me on the top spot on the internet for coffee with a cleric. My goal is to introduce people to the Jesus they never knew, and help them get to know Him and His word personally – and better ! If our time together today speaks to your heart, then let me invite you to like, subscribe and share it with a friend!
Just a few days ago a newborn baby girl was discovered abandoned in a local park. She was still attached to the placenta. Thankfully, someone found her and saved her life. She was abandoned. She was unloved.
Let me ask, do those words describe anyone you know? (Perhaps even yourself??)
I have goods news — NO ONE is truly unlovable.
Today’s verse says GOD DEMONSTRATES HIS OWN LOVE FOR US IN THIS: WHILE WE WERE STILL SINNERS, CHRIST DIES FOR US
I make this claim on the evidence of what Christ did for us in offering His life for ours. That is the greatest act of love. It is totally selfless, because He has no need to offer a sinner’s sacrifice. Jesus was and is TOTALLY sinless. Though He was tempered in every way we are, He never gave in and never committed a single sin. It is this factor that makes His sacrifice for our sins possible.
And, to be honest, it wasn’t like we were strolling around LOOKING for a savior. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. We were trapped in our sins, and many of us had neither the intention nor the desire to leave them. Some of us still thought of our sinful life as “fun” and were unaware of its deadly and destructive impact.
Others of us knew that the sin which held us in its clutches was only shouting empty promises. We knew that in the end, sin was never going to deliver on its promises. So we were either seeking new, bigger and “better” sins in the hope that we’d only chosen the wrong sin initially, or we had come to the point of being depressed and dejected while we hopelessly searched for a way out of the trap we’d created for ourselves.
Whatever the case, the simple truth is that — happy or not — we were NEVER going to get free of sins claws on our own. We were already DEAD in our sins; but some of us just didn’t know it yet.
ENTER JESUS. Choosing to demonstrate His love for us. Choosing to enter the jail and set the prisoners free. His love brought Him to where we lay – trapped abandoned in the park crying in fear and unable to escape; then He became the way of escape. He came to those who were already dead and, just as He did at every funeral He ever came upon while He walked this earth, HE SPOKE LIFE TO THE DEAD and they lived!!!
This is how God demonstrates HIS OWN LOVE for us — while we were STILL SINNERS, Christ dies for us.
Not abandoned, but sought out. Not unloved, but embraced.
He gave everything necessary for you to have life, to have freedom and to TRULY LIVE in Him.
If you’re looking for life, look no farther. Here He is. Waiting for you to respond.
Chose life!
